1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to rescue equipment generally and, more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a novel rescue basket and method for helicopters which are especially useful in rescuing persons from burning buildings and in like situations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Helicopters have become extremely useful in rescuing and transferring persons trapped in life threatening situations or who need relocating for medical or other emergency reasons. There are literally thousands of circumstances that require the Army, Navy, Air Force, reserves, rangers, Coast Guard, fire and police departments, rescue squads, emergency medical and hospital groups, and others to use helicopters to fly to people and to evacuate them, especially when the people are in otherwise inaccessible situations. The ability of helicopters to hover over or near a rescue site is particularly useful in many rescue situations.
One difficult rescue situation is in the case of burning buildings. Often, the elevators and stairs in high rise buildings (or even shorter buildings) may be blocked, ladder trucks may not be able to reach windows, and/or people may be too high or unwilling to jump into a rescue net.
Commonly, in situations in which the helicopter cannot land, some sort of rescue mechanism is lowered vertically to the person or persons to be retrieved. This type of mechanism requires that the person to be rescued be directly underneath the helicopter and be able to attach or to enter the device, otherwise a trained rescuer must be lowered to assist the person.
A sling-type rescue device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,742, issued Jun. 4, 1991, to Haslim, the device being lowered vertically from a boom extending forwardly of a helicopter. Similarly, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,564,161, issued Jan. 14, 1986, to Frye, and 4,627,821, issued Dec. 9, 1986, to Bradley et al., describe basket-type devices that are lowered vertically to a person or persons to be rescued.
None of the devices described in the foregoing patents is suitable for rescuing persons from windows of burning buildings. Because there is no direct force pressing the basket against the side of the building, positioning a basket of one of these devices next to a window so that persons can enter the basket is difficult. One approach to this specific situation is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,934,847, issued Jan. 27, 1976, to Bentivegna, which describes a rescue capsule which is lowered vertically from the fuselage of a helicopter on flexible cables. The capsule includes a gangplank-type bridge extending from the distal end thereof. The capsule is lowered to the vicinity of a window of a burning building, the bridge is lowered against the building, and persons in the building cross the bridge to the capsule. This technique suffers the same disadvantage as those described in the foregoing patents, in that there is no direct force pressing the bridge against the building, making the use of such a device extremely hazardous.
Accordingly, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and a method which are especially useful in rescuing persons from buildings or from other surfaces which have vertical dimensional components, such apparatus and method being relatively safe.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide such apparatus which is economical to construct.
It is a further object of the invention to provide such apparatus and method which provide a positive force against the side of a building from which persons are to be rescued.
Other objects of the present invention, as well as particular features, elements, and advantages thereof, will be elucidated in, or be apparent from, the following description and the accompanying drawing figures.